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NG (March 2012): The Journey of the ApostlesVishal comments: I am forwarding this note of protest that I sent to the National
Geographic magazine today immediately upon seeing their issue. The
article starts with a picture of Christian tribals in Odisha with an
inflammatory caption. Thereafter too, there is another picture of an
Indian Christian who 'suffered for Christ', and usual nonsense on
Christianity saving low caste people in India...

...
"Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult — an omission that leaves many practitioners open to libidinal surprise. "

-- I don't want to promote Broad's book, or help him sell more by stirring up a controversy. However, some critical analysis will be needed, I think. I'm going to assume that his book will contain all kinds of errors and misinterpretations
(e.g., sutras don't name any specific asanas, so those asanas didn't exist, e.g., yoga was stripped of its sexual baggage and republished by Indian nationalists, and so on).

-- So what is the way to make sure (assuming there are such mistakes) that such a book does not become general wisdom?.."

Ram responds:
"Rajiv has given an excellent clue about handling western style descriptions of dharmic/Indian events and activities which give only a part of the meaning of these untranslatable words. I have been using this methods to good effect
recently, by pointing out that in our tradition some words have several meanings at different levels, and choosing just one meaning is wrong.

For example, my friend who is of Indian descent, has been saying that the Shiva lingam in the Hindu mandirs is a phallus, and that Hindus are worshipping.... I found this to be a gross misrepresentation, and told him that ... they went up to the murtis to do arti, but were seeing it as a symbol of Shiva, or a symbol of the manifest universe etc.

He was not convinced until I showed him the Wikipedia entry (below) which showed 16 meanings for the word lingam, only one of which was phallus ....He now understands that Hindus can see the lingam in many ways, ... My friend, who claims to be a Hindu himself, has now stopped with his favourite story.....

Nagaraja recounts a story of Adi Sankara and Mandana Misra:
"...Adi Shankara stands in front of Mandana Misra's house and says Bhikshan dehi. But, Mandana Mishra wants to taunt Adi Shankara and the conversation goes like this.

MM - Kuthaha Mundi (From Where? Shaven (Implying Where are you coming from oh shaven one? - shaven used in a derogatory sense))

AS - Agalath Mundi (Shaven from Chin and above, twists the question to mean From where onwards are you shaven and answers)

MM - Kim Sura Peethaha (What? you want to drink liquor?)

AS - Sura Shwethaha (Liquor is white, twists the question Kim Sura Peethaha to mean What? is liquor yellow?, based on a different meaning of the word peethaha)

The conversation continues like this and Mandana Mishra cannot continue his satire and comes to the point. Once they sit for a proper argument Adi Shankara then provides straight arguments to the point based on his knowledge of Tatva.

What Rajiv ji is set out to do is similar to a part of what Adi Shankaracharya has done (objective, calm arguments to establish certain truths) and Adi Shankaracharya's heroics offer many lessons to do this."

bluecupid shares a link:
"A good [rebuttal] to Broad's sweeping generalization can be found here;

Raj says: I guess this confirms that yoga has entered stage 4 of the u-turn.

Rajiv's comment: Yoga like most other dharmic items has been simultaneously in stages 2, 3 and 4 for many decades. Each stage has its own champions, and they perform like good cops versus bad cops in mutual tension. This is how enzymes operate in mutual tension to end up digesting the food. Most folks cannot see this big picture and hence run around glorifying the good cops.

BD defines specific boundaries which anyone wanting to be a good cop must be asked to cross explicitly and publicly. It forces a hard test, so the person cannot vacillate or pretend there is no difference. It clarifies why he cannot have it both ways. Naturally, this is very discomforting to those who have
become settled in sameness. I have many angry critics attacking me for disrupting their sameness comfort zone.

Karthik responds to Arun:
"I had emailed Rajiv about this book a few weeks ago, on the
evening I heard William Broad being interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's
"Fresh Air".

As far
as developing a strategy goes: could we write en masse to NPR
(specifically, Terry Gross)? We would need to outline what,
specifically, we found objectionable about the views aired in that
interview and why, in the interest of fairness, "Fresh Air" ought to
feature a balancing viewpoint. The transcript of the Broad interview is
available here:.."

Why Digestion is different than AssimilationRajiv Malhotra writes a blog to respond to critics who say that: everyone has
been always borrowing from other cultures, so "whats the problem". We carry this with very little editing, but register [it's free] and read the original post in the e-group to fully understand the context and complete message. As always, the highlighting, emphasis, etc have been added in this (HHG) blog.

"There
are several other examples of civilizations becoming digested by some other
civilization. Many symbols, rituals and ideas came to Christianity from the
so-called pagans (pre-Christian Europeans), but these pagan faiths were
demonized and destroyed in the process. Native Americans gave numerous riches to
the European colonizers - including potatoes, tomatoes, material wealth, fertile
lands - but these original discoverers and citizens of the Americas lost their
way of life, and have ended up in museums as exotic artifacts, or as drunken
people living on isolated reservations. Egyptian civilization was digested into
Greece, and before that some of the African civilizations had been digested
into Egypt. In each case, the side getting digested was compromised,
marginalized and eventually ceased to be a living, thriving civilization.
Today, before our very eyes, Tibetan civilization is being digested into China....

I
want to differentiate between this kind of digestion and the way Greek
civilization has been assimilated into "Western" classics without
losing track of the sources. While many Indian thinkers, texts and ideas got
digested into so-called "European Enlightenment", and the Indian
sources replaced with Western ones, the same is not true of Greek civilization.
It is fashionable in intellectual circles and in the academy to study and cite
Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and numerous other great classical thinkers of Greece,
who are now regarded as a part and parcel of the "West". But in
classical times, the Greeks did not see themselves as a part of Northern
European culture and referred to the northerners as the Occidental
"other", while Europeans referred to the Greeks as part of the
"Orient". Here lies the difference between Indian and Greek
civilizations relationship with the West: When the modern West was formulated, Greece
was included as a part of it. Hence, there has been no need to replace Greek
sources with other substitutes. But when India was mined for source materials,
it remained in Western eyes the non-Western other. India was too different, too
far and too massive to be included within the West. Hence, Indian sources of
interest were mapped on to Western substitutes. This is why the academy today
does not teach Kapil, Bharat, Kautilya, Bharthrhari, Panini, Patanjali,
Nagarjuna, Shankara, Abhinavagupta, and dozens of other greats on par with
Greek thinkers. The Greeks are part of the West's imagined selfhood while the
Indians are not. Therefore, I use the term "assimilation" to describe
the experience of Greece, contrasted with digestion. The book explains this
distinction further.

I
also want to explain that Indian civilization spread across much of Asia, but
in a manner that is different than imperialism, colonialism or conquest. While
many Asian nations sent their brightest students to places like Nalanda
university in India to bring back knowledge, this was never imposed from the
Indian side. At a time when India had the material resources and power to do
so, it never tried to appoint governors or tax collectors in another country,
or replace their names, language and identity with its own. In other words,
there was no digestion of others that would cause them harm.

I
return to the issue commonly raised that every culture has borrowed from
others, and hence the same kind of digestion is being done by everyone. Why am
I making a case out of the digestion of Indian civilization into the West, some
people ask? My response is that there is a difference between digestion and
assimilation. Most examples people cite are about assimilation, not digestion,
because the source tradition does not get destroyed during the process. When there
is an asymmetry of power between the parties involved in the exchange, the
implications of exchange depend on this power equation. For instance:

Native Americans also borrowed
many things from the white settlers - horses, liquor, guns, for instance.
But the natives lacked the power to destroy the white culture. The
borrowings in the reverse direction had an entirely different implication.

One can cite examples of
Indians learning from Westerners and assimilating these ideas as part of
Indian ways. However, India did not take over the global language,
institutional apparatus, discourse and grand narrative of history. Indian
siddhantas (philosophical theories) did not assume the status of
universalism in the same manner as European thought did. Hence the
implications of Indian assimilations are not the same as those of
digestion by the West.

When women entered the American
workforce in the 1960s, men had the power and the women's imitation of men
at work was not because women were digesting men. Women did not have the
power to do so. Hence, while there was women's mimicry of men, it was
assimilation and not digestion.

Secondly,
who says that I oppose all those other kinds of assimilation from being the
subject of scholarship? The fact is that the history of ideas as written by
Western historians is filled with how the West influenced others, rarely the
other way around. In fact, even since Hegel, world history has largely been
depicted as the story of what the West did to itself and to others, as though
the non-West lacked agency. Therefore, it should not be seen as a problem if
some works like mine focus on the flow of influence in the opposite direction. I
do not oppose works that bring out assimilations (and even digestions) in which
the West is not the predator. Let many directions of research flourish and
interact. I do not wish to monopolize the discourse on the history of ideas, but
merely wish to add one more dimension
to it, ....

In
Being Different, I discuss that large
aspects of today's global culture are in fact founded on the values and beliefs
that emerged under Western domination of the world in the past 500 years, and
these in turn are founded on the values and beliefs that emerged from the
unique historical and religious experience of the peoples of European origin.
When all collective identities are discarded and all boundaries challenged, the
result is not a world free from dominance but one in which the strongest and
most aggressive identities along with their versions of history and values prevail....."

Ellen looks at 'the human tendency to recognize sameness'. This is an interesting perspective, and we carry this in some depth with limited editing:"By way of introduction, I teach Hinduism and Buddhism ... ...although I have not read Rajiv Malhotra's text yet, I am in agreement (to some extent) with the essence of his basic thesis on difference. Having said that, I want to introduce yet another way of looking at 'religion'. Bear in mind that scholars of 'religion' are really not concerned with the same issues that practitioners are and this is why 'insiders' often have debates with or have taken objection to their work. But, I need not go into detail here, this discussion has raised so many issues with academia on its own that it is not necessary to rehash the objections and central points again and again. What is important to point out, I think, is that within the scholarly study of religion -- as the saying goes -- we teach 'about' religion, we don't actually teach religion -- and this might be the crux or source of the central objection. In order to do this we attempt to explain and interpret 'religion' as a phenomenon using the methods of the social sciences (and most insiders don't always agree with this approach). But, please bear in mind, this is true equally for all religions, not just Hinduism.

Having said that, I want to introduce a new way of understanding religion, but certainly not the only way. That is to say, through the lens of cognitive science or the study of the mind/brain. It seems to me, that when we look at the human mind/brain we see more 'similarities' than 'differences'. ...

This is true not only for neuroscience but also for cognitive linguistic theorists who debate Noam Chomsky's notion of a universal grammar that is triggered by linguistic environments at birth. In other words, we (i.e., humans) don't arrive in this world at birth as a tabula rasa. ...

Cognitive theorists are looking at religion as a deeply human phenomenon that expresses itself, like language, in myriad ways. To this end, cognitive scientists are generating a wealth of empirical data based on analytical and applied research, and their efforts lend a new and vital theoretical approach to the field of religious studies. It is my view that the cognitive science of religion has several critical areas of mutual (and beneficial) intersection with Hindu and Buddhist religion (particularly the teachings of the great yogis and mahasiddhas) including critical discussions on the nature of consciousness, the role of the nervous system in religious experience and claims of non-duality (advaita). In this way, science and religion have a role to play in levelling the playing field where religions are concerned, at least in my view.

The question is not, as I see it, one of difference per se, but rather how does the mind/brain generate religious experience and why? In the case of the great yogis, this is an exceedingly important question given the embodied nature of religious experience and the role that mind plays, for example, in meditation (including such states as turiya, samprajnata and asamprajnata samadhi, etc.). I once asked a great yogi the central question raised by cognitive philosophers. That is to say, 'how does matter become conscious?" In turn, he looked at me and did what any great yogi would, he turned my question on its head (into a headstand of sorts!) and said, "no, Ellen, the question is, how does consciousness become matter?" Either way, it is clear that for both sides consciousness is the key. And it is clear, at least to me, that on this subject humans are more alike than we are different.

There is an excellent and what I consider to be a beautiful quote from an amazing scholar of psychology named Merlin Donald who writes: ....

....why humans aspire for a sense of unity and cognitive integrity in the first place. ... it is intrinsic to our evolutionary, biological self. It is written in to our genetic structure. The explanation is that simple. It is human to do so!
I have added this simple thread for your consideration. I realize you will have to debate and tear it apart. But I do think it is worth considering seriously.

Let me end with a scene from the vastly successful Bollywood film 'Dulwale Dulhania Le Jayenge' to make my point using a different approach. Baldev's pigeons, as it turns out, were the same everywhere -- in Traflagar Square and in the Punjab. It was his 'mind' (or his culture) that created the differences. Nature is One. So, too, Simran (the lead female character) prays both at a her family altar as well as in a church. Why? The pure mind sees no difference. And I think this is why we cry at the end of the film -- Baldev realizes advaita through love -- through prem -- when he opens his heart."

struth91 responds:
"...
For the sake of clarity, lets use the term 'spiritual experience' or 'mystical experience' as opposed to 'religious experience' for the sense of cognitive integrity or larger consiousness, as described by Ellen....

While Ellen is correct in stressing on the commonality of humans striving towards this 'spiritual experience' - religions are certainly not all 'equal' or the same in their support for such activity. In fact, BD repeatedly brings up the point that Christianity and 'history-centric' religions in general have historically been antogonistic towards this 'mysticism' and there is the well-known history of mystics being marginalized and persecuted in the Abrahamic tradition. In contrast - Dharmic religions view spiritual experience as
an inner science and the the entire goal of religion is to facilitate such a state.

By providing scientific validation to the thesis that striving towards cognitive unity is a fundamentally human need and goal - Ellen provides support to the conclusion that this individual striving should be recognized as a basic human right. There is a need to debate whether religions that impose dogmatic, exclusivistic or history-centric restrictions on a basic human right can be allowed to propagate and destroy the more individualistic and inner-science oriented faiths
through 'push' sales techniques."

Nagaraja adds:
"....The underlying voice in your conclusion seems to be that the 'difference consciousness' creates a divide, an unpleasant and uncomfortable feeling which can be overcome by a 'sameness consciousness' or a 'consciousness that overlooks
differences" creating unity which is a pleasant and comfortable feeling. Please correct me if I am wrong. My contention is that while this aspiration for unity and pleasantness is good, there is another way of achieving it which the Rishis have shown and our previous generations had mastered. That of acknowledging the differences and respecting them... "

Rajiv adds a moderating comment here:"I started a new thread [this is carried in a separate post, see the egroup link at the bottom of this post] because this misunderstanding by Ellen
also explained below is a very common one and a very serious one. It
inflicts many well intended and supposedly well informed dharmic people
including many acharyas and swamis who teach Vedanta = escapism. Lets
migrate to that thread so its not personal about Ellen. But I do thank
her for opening this up here."

For one thing, she takes the One-ness of
consciousness and extrapolates it to one-ness of mind. There is no
one-ness of mind or thought. That is purely individual. Consciousness is
NOT the mind. Let us not be IRRESPONSIBLE about using the buzzwords as
we like. Mind/Belief/Religion are NOT the same as
Consciousness/Experience/Spiritual.. and you cannot use the concepts
from one context interchangeably.

Religion is of the mind, not consciousness. Its god is a defined god
(deliberately in lower case) - with specific characteristic... and
therefore limited and restricted - it has NOTHING to do with Infinite..
All the talk of One-ness, Infinite in Religious or Theology is
schizophrenic nonsense.Â

Spirituality starts where physicality and finite ends. Spirituality is not a "mind-game", it is an experiential process.

Religion
is belief-centric, Spirituality is experience-centric. Lets understand
it from Gita's example - in the second chapter, Krishna asks Arjun to go
fight. He refuses point blank. Instead in third chapter beginning he
complains about he is confused between Jnana and Karma. And in the 4th
chap beginning he asks directly "How do I know what you are saying is
Truth?" Not once in entire Gita does Arjun say even ONCE that "I believe
you". Instead when he sees the Universal self of Krishna he finally
says "I KNOW this to be the Truth". Knowing via experience VS Believing
someone.

We have confused our limited "love" for Spiritual Love. The DDLJ
Baldev's example to speak about Spirituality looks cute, but is
nonsensical...When the Quality of one's love for her Beloved transform
to become hopeless yet unrelenting, then it begins to get into a
position to take her beyond the physical.

...."

Sandeep responds to Ellen:

" > The question is not, as I see it, one of difference per se, but rather how does the mind/brain generate religious experience and why? <

I think this question has already been answered in Yoga texts. Spiritual experience occurs due to suspension of thought. The energy (Prana) which was occupied in thinking is first recovered in order to transfer consciousness into the subtle body.

There are three energy channels Ida, Pingala and Sushumna collocated with the spinal cord. In normal circumstances, the breath moves through left and right channels - Ida and Pingala. All methods of Yoga aim to divert the breath from the side channels into the central channel so that it connects with the universal energy (Mukhya Prana) which can be contacted through the Sahasradala Chakra at the top of the head.

Cognitive theorists are too pre-occupied with the brain. They should pay attention to the spinal cord as well. "

Srini comments:

"...This is a comment on the argument used for justification of a certain way of studying religion/philosophy and not on the intentions of the person.

...."we teach 'about' religion, we don't actually teach religion"
Does that mean non-belief and/or non-experience in a topic gives a person the right teach "about" it? Or is it like Deepak Chopra saying I teach "about" Quantum physics not actually quantum physics. I don't have to point out what true quantum physicists think about such people.
....I do think the contributions of such "scholars" is valuable ..."

Rajiv's response:

I must clarify what Ellen meant, I think. Teaching "about" something is a third-person view, whereas practicing it is a first-person view. Both are valid and complement each other.The important point is that religions defined by a text rather than by embodied experience can be and usually are interpreted using third-person techniques known as hermeneutics. An expert need not be a practitioner because its a matter of interpreting what the text means. This is like a lawyer interpreting what a contract says. (These texts are seen as covenants or contracts given by God.) Indians must understand that this is the result of history-centrism and shortfall in embodied knowing in those traditions. So if that text (a historical record) were lost, man would be doomed as there would be no way even in principle to recover it again. Not so in the case of embodied knowing - thats the whole point of chapter 2."

Kundan adds:
"To add my two cents to this post, I would say that the West has been in a
parasitic instead of symbiotic relationship with Indian Thought. It has
enriched itself by appropriating the thought while simultaneously
destroying it in India and suppressing the influence in its home soil.

We
are opposing a parasitic relationship that the West has forged and we
do not have anything against a symbiotic relationship. True to the
Indian principle, we will encourage a symbiotic scholarly exchange that
is based on mutuality and parity of power. "

March 1

comment on Being Different
Rajiv: This comment posted on Patheos.com where my book is being
discussed at their Book Club. I enourage others to participate.

Indrani comments "... As
someone born into the Dharmic Traditions in the Caribbean where my
ancestors have lived hundreds of years and where my internal and
external space was bombarded by the oppressive presence of persons and
institutions that were forcibly, selfishly, and exclusively promoting
their Judeo-Christian ideology, I have spent all of my years in a
constant struggle to BE myself and to SEE myself in the world around
me. I have struggled with the issues that BD so brilliantly articulates
for people like us who are born into and live most of our lives almost
in a Twilight Zone of sorts.

This text bridges the gap between the academy and the masses. It
brings the distillation of ideas from a hardcore scholarly level down to one that most ordinary folks can understand.

The
text should be prescribed reading for people trying to understand why
they find it difficult to "belong" in hegemonic societies, and for those
who exercise the hegemony so they can appreciate the violence that they
are perpetuating and perhaps do something about it.

People
like me are better able to find our bearings in a Judeo-Christian and
western world, when we read BD. This text, in a way, sets up important
navigation directions for the interface between Dharmic and Abrahmic
traditions. It is a jewel in the Samudra Manthan."

March 4

Please Post : Re: Mutual Respect...Pankaj posts: On Mutual Respect As the term implies, there has to be both
reciprocity and respect....
please note that the Jews do not convert and it may be possible to take a Position of mutual respect with them, provided they accept. Also note that in India we have not had problems between Hindus and Jews because of religious injunctions or basis in society, strongly supported by the fact that both the sides do not seek to convert each other."

[we will carry the discussion in this thread below in a separate post because of the many comments posted]
March 4

Rajiv comments:
When GOI made this grant to set up the chair a year or two back, I
pointed out that U of Chicago is the home of Wendy Doniger from where
emerged the Freudian psychoanalysis of Sri Ramakrishna, the guru of
Swami Vivekananda. What irony that the genre of scholarship that has
done the most damage to Vivekananda's guru gets the multi-million dollar
chair endowed supposedly to teach about Vivekananda. You can image what
kind of spin that chair will teach. Similarly, the India chairs set up
by GOI in some other countries have had questionable occupants. Many
tend to be selected based on being cronies, sepoys, or if they are
well-intended they lack the ability to stick their necks out and change
the discourse in any meaningful manner.

The same it true of some non-govt initiatives set up by "Hindu
activists". The selection process in one recent academic appointment was
a gimmick to give the appearance of being a genuine search. One
applicant told me that when he went for his interview, he was told by an
insider that the selection had already been made, and this interview
was just to show that the selection was objective and fair..... This candidate felt so
angry at the blatant abuse of academic due process.

I am saying all this because its unclear if the newspaper advertisement is genuine or merely for show.."

I wonder if anybody in our esteemed group is in a position to
inform/influence the organizer about Michael Witzel who no friend of India and and certainly no Vedic/Hindu scholar and does not deserve to head the committee.

Shambu responds:
"This is Prof. Witzel's baby since 1989 - he started it, as his answer to
the WAVES conferences. He decides who is in and who is not. Therefore
it is limited to his small network of Indology friends and naive Hindus.

With
the demise of the Aryan Invasion Theory, and then the followed-up Aryan
Migration Theory, Indology has been struggling to gather food: udara nimttam baukrta vesham. Of late, the secular Government of India and the NarayanaMurthys have been rescuing it.

If
we care about India, Samskrita, the Veda, and all that has sprung out
of it, we need not fight it out and waste time, since it is in its death
bed. Time to meditate and recite viSNu sahasranaamaavali!...

Rajiv's comment: By what criteria and on what evidence did you
conclude that AIT/AMT are dead? In which institutions and segments of
population are they dead, and in which are they alive? How about rigor
in gathering evidence and then informing us. For example, please
address:
- I dont find it dead in textbooks in India or USA.
- I dont find it dead on the GOI web sites where they discuss Indian history.
-
I dont find it dead in the publications of people getting padam bhushan
type of awards, and academic chairs for India studies.
- Worst of all, I dont find it dead amongst scholars being given grants and funds by so-called dharma civilization foundations.

Also, maybe you should follow your advice to not bother with such issues and practice: "Time to meditate and recite viSNu sahasranaamaavali!""

Gopal pings the organizers and forwards their response:
"This is the response I got from Srikant[] one of the Organizers,

Respected Sir,

I have received your mail and have noted the contents. As the
organizers of this 6th Vedic International Workshop have decided, the main
focus of this conference is the Tradition of the Vedic Shakhas in Kerala and
other parts of India. They will not entertain any discussion on Aryan Problem
and related controversial issues for which there are other platforms. No one,
including Prof. Witzel, will be allowed to speak or make a presentation that
directly or indirectly points to those issues or supports anti-Hindu
propaganda, or denigrates Indian Culture. We do not subscribe to such views and
are not interested to spend our time for initiating such a discussion.

As for Prof. Witzel's position as the Chair, it has been there
for the past several years, since 1989, when he initiated this workshop. I have
attended the past three workshops and have found no controversial issues
discussed. ....

Prof. Witzel has done significant work on the Vedic Shakhas and
published several articles. You may read them and refute his arguments, if you
so desire.

.....

I hope I have made our position clear.

Can the members of the forum decipher it and provide a respectful response."

Venkat replies to Gopal:
".... link and content of a dossier of Witzel anti Hindu nature which you should forward to Shrikant[].

Vishal comments:"...What [Srikhant] says ... is true. The conferences have rigidly stuck to studying Vedic traditions in the past.

Witzel will be 70 in July this year - so not much time for him to keep going. Given his health, people think he is 80.

But what are WE HINDUS doing to study our traditions OURSELVES? Most Hindus have not even seen copies of the Vedas, nor have heard them being chanted.

Given this situation, we should follow the dictum, "one should learn Dharma even from the lowliest..."

Venkat responds:
I received a reply..:
... Thank you ... Let me make it clear that I do not subscribe to his views nor do I support them. My area of study is limited to .... This is the reason why I try to help ....

Rajiv's comment:
His reply is typical of washing one's hands of responsibility.
"I only do my work, poor little me." "I have my eyes closed to what others do."

January 26Rajiv's new blog on FirstPost.Kaajal posts:Please read Rajiv's new blog on FirstPost. The title: We need to Study Western, "White" culture on our own terms. This blog draws upon Rajiv's writings from a few years ago on identity formation of Indians in America. In particular, Rajiv
draws our attention to the importance of studying "whiteness" as a means of fully understanding Western culture and its claims of universalism. [Here's the e-group link to the December 2012 discussion cited].

Chirayu shares: Anybody researching on Jehovah's Witnesses may find this
interesting. Recently the hackers collective known as anonymous hacked
into the JW's servers and released about 700 MB of data. You can download the release from here ..."

But if you really were politically astute, you wouldn't be taking your tips from an Italian manual. A far more powerful treatise is available in the East which predates Machiavelli by at least 1,800 years: the Arthashastra (The Science of Material Success) by Chanakya, the genius behind the throne who masterminded the creation of the first Indian empire..."

February 20

In a couple of sentences...
Until Rajiv Malhotra's book, Hindus by and large approached
inter-faith dialog with the attitude that "we are one tradition of
music, and you are another. Nada...

Goel shares: Given below is the text of a speech on "God is not One." It might
encourage others in the chat group to take the message of Hinduism to
wider audiences rather than talking amongst ourselves. Please distribute
it, if it has value.

The document is also attached for easier reading.

GOD IS NOT ONE

(Note:
The speech on “God is Not One” was delivered at the Unitarian Universalist
Church ..... before I had the benefit of Rajiv Malhotra’s excellent
book, Being Different. Unitarians are well versed with the sordid
history and doctrine of Christianity.
Therefore, the speech dwells more on critiquing Islam than Christianity.
Taking pride in being “tolerant”, Unitarians often give a pass to Islam. It is
a short 35-minute speech and many arguments are left unsaid. A similar speech
was delivered at Unity Church of Christianity. I have also delivered speeches
on Essentials of Hinduism at the local churches (Methodist, Baptist, Church of
Christ) and at college and senior-citizen groups. A positive offshoot of the
rise of Radical Islam is renewed interest in studying world religions. The US
is not a monolithic society. There is room here to speak on Hinduism.)

My
topic originated with Stephen Prothero’s book: God is Not One: the Eight Religions that Run the World—and Why their
Differences Matter, 2010..."

Rajiv's response:

"...Goel makes good points in his speech below. However, I wish to make two points:
1) Prothero's book which he comments on to make the case of "difference" does not show Hinduism in the same light as BD does. There are many who point out how Hinduism is different - in caste, lack of "progress" and so forth - by using criteria and picking differences that are not at all the same kind as in BD. I find Prothero's treatment of Hinduism overall unacceptable, ...In fact, Prothero does not give weight to a dharmic family of traditions as such.
2) Many of Prof. Goel's differences below are socio-political items like violence in Islam/Christianity. He discusses exclusivity, but BD's project is to ask: "what makes them exclusive?" The answer BD gives is history centrism. Otherwise, its a matter of "blaming" them for being bad guys. My point is that exclusivity is something those systems CANNOT HELP as long as they depend on truth exclusively through historical prophets. ... I want to find out whats in their DNA that makes this their very character.
Having said this, I appreciate what Prof. Goel has done by way of spreading the notion that we must claim our distinctiveness and not join the bandwagon of sameness."

Then he wrote a rejoinder to me, which a friend in the DC area was kind enough to forward to me. I have been having such exchanges frequently for many years as part of my purva paksha. Since many
persons here do not have such experience, I am passing on this particular
criticism, along with my responses which are yellow highlighted in square brackets after each of his points. There is nothing
new he says that I havent heard many times before. Many of his statements are outright false, some are a play on
semantics. SB stands for Southern Baptist.

SB: Others attained salvation (saving grace) before Jesus
appeared in human form on the earth. At
that time Jews lived under the system of laws, not grace. Their faith in attempting to keep the law was
accepted as righteousness. [He is referring to Jews only, not
ALL others. So my point remains that humanity at large was eligible for
salvation only after Jesus.]

Jesus was born from God and Mary. SB Response:
Not quite – Christ existed from the very beginning with God. Mary was used as a mechanism to bring Christ
into the world as a descendent of Abraham (prophet) and David (prophet) to
fulfill prophecy. Christians believe
Jesus is God. [While Christ existed before, Jesus the human has a
defined beginning in time. Thats why Christmas is celebrated and the start of
the Christian calendar. Christians believe that Jesus = Christ's incarnation.
So Jesus WAS born from God and Mary, hence the only human ever to be absolved
from Original Sin. That's my point.]

SB: Hindus believe we started out divine. – The divine was lost? God became corrupt in human form? How did man lose his divinity and start to
sin, or does sin exist in Hinduism? [He needs to understand the concept of avidya. Because he does not, his
only recourse is to substitute it with Original Sin which is entirely different.]

SB: 20:00 Christianity was started by Emperor
Constantine. Christ never used the term
Christian. Churches started under
Constantine. SB response: Constantine originally killed Christians. Christian means
Christ like. The Apostles and Jesus' earthly brothers started churches. [Wrong. It is true that Constantine did
"originally" kill Christians, but that was before he became Christian
himself. This is a slick manipulation on SB's part. The relevant point is that
the NEW TESTAMENT WAS WRITTEN BY AN EDITORIAL TEAM UNDER CONSTANTINE. Whatever
the early apostles and "earthly brothers" taught was superseded by
the Church as a theocratic institution that went on a global rampage to
conquer, plunder... which continues today by institutions such as Southern
Baptist Church in places like Nagaland. Also, the early "brothers"
included some like Thomas who got thrown out of the bible because their ideas
were counter to centralized thought control. I am referring to Christianity as
it exists now as a formal institution, the Southern Baptist Church being a
prominent example.]

...

Q & A

SB: Rajiv quotes a Jesuit Catholic and a Vatican Catholic Harvard
professor – they aren't Christians.
Catholicism rejects much of what the Bible says. Catholics worship Mary and the "Saints". [This attitude that "my
Southern Baptism is the only legit Christianity" is precisely what I wish
to bring out as the curse of history centrism. Thanks to SB for helping me make
my point.]

SB: Rajiv says Pagan means country Bumpkin. Not true.
The common meaning of Pagan: follower of polytheism. [People who were polytheistic got
branded "pagan" which had the meaning of country bumpkins.]

"If it weren't for
the Church, Jesus would have just been considered a Rishi" – SB response:
this isn't true. The Bible says
everything was created w/ Christ and nothing was created without him. [In the Hindu system, too, everything is created from Brahman, in fact everything
IS Brahman. My point is different and he either does not understand or want to
understand. Rishi state is available to every human and is unity consciousness
with Brahman. Jesus state is not available to any other person. Thats the
difference, not how the world was created.]

"…Christian yoga…" – SB response:
I know of no Christian Church that
offers yoga. [This shows
how ignorant he is or is in denial in front of Hindus to dupe them.He should google "christian
yoga", go to a christian bookstore, do some research into this form of
yoga that is spreading like wild fire.]

Surya comments:
"...History
tells us that much of western scientific thought developed in
opposition to Christianity. History-centrism is the main reason that
science faced and still faces opposition by Christians. For example,
The young earth
creationists in Christianity believe that earth is not much older than
4000 BC. Some Christian [apologists] try to bridge this faith with
fossil evidence by arguing that God created the Earth recently but with
an earth with fossils that give the feel of being much older. In 1950s, Pope
Pius XII agreed to the academic freedom to study the scientific
implications of evolution, as long as Catholic dogma is not violated. You will notice such stubborn opposition to evidence in History-centric religions.

The reason for the Nicene creed is, in my opinion, two fold:

(1) to provide a common ground for different Christian divisions.

(2)
to define the core thought that cannot be compromised. What is outside
the core can be (grudgingly) compromised but not without a fight and
only if the evidence is unsurmountable. Thus, the Vatican recently
accepting Evolutionary biology is such a compromise....

Core,
incompatible, ideology is protected using history centric arguments.
Rest of it grows and adapts through inculturation, serving as a
protective layer to the core...."

Arun shares:

"...I find this article, "Beyond Western Hegemonies"by Giovanni Arrighi, Iftikhar Ahmad & Miin-wen Shih to have an adequate explanation of how the West came to dominate Asia. It is not cultural or collective character defects of Indians.
Quote:
"The original and most enduring source of Western power in Asia has been the capacity of Western states to disrupt the complex organization that linked Asian societies to one another within and across jurisdictional and civilizational
divides. This capacity has been rooted in Western advances in military technology on the one side, and in the vulnerability of Asian societies to the military disruption of their mutual trade on the other side.".."

Venkata adds:

"...Refusal to engage either out of fear or on account of certain smugness of self-aasurance, with inimical forces, is another reason for the intellectual, economic and military subjugation of Hindus. One can see this factor persisting even today--for example in the view of some well-meaning Hindus that Hindu intellectuals interested in protecting Dharma should not waste their time in debating things with "foreigners", "missionaries" etc..."

NS Rajaram responds:

"It is also a question of time. Many of us have a busy schedule and don't have the time needed to prepare and debate these people."

Rajiv's response:

Agreed. Which is why it should not be taken up by people
casually, inconsistently, without adequate commitment for the long run, without adequate training, experience, and the right depth of required knowledge.

Once people appreciate that this is a specialty, not a casual hobby, only then can they respect others who specialize in this with commitment."

Carpentier responds:
"Engaging with Evangelicals or Born Again Christians tend to be fruitless since they have an agenda based on "blind" faith which is by definition not amenable to reasoning."

Rajiv's response:
I have said this many times here: If your goal is to change the
mind of a debating opponent, you are wasting time in debate. But if your goal is to educate the large audience of undecided, confused, vacillating, persons then the above logic is irrelevant. Using your logic, one should not debate opponents
in politics because one does not expect them to switch parties."

Arun adds:
I second Rajiv Malhotra's response. The point of a debate is not to change the opponent, but to change the audience.

Rajiv's comment:
The impact if any on the other side is irrelevant. The other
side is merely to be used as a device to get one's own points out to the audience - not only those sitting in the hall but those who will watch it on YouTube later. If your impact on the audiences will be negative, then dont get involved. This could be the case if you are ill-prepared on purva paksha,
inexperienced in debate, crude in communication skills, or if moderation will be biased against you. Most Hindu activists have suffered this fate. But I dont believe that I have suffered these conditions - my track record for a decade of taking on opponents is very public. Many new movements got inspired, many groups emerged, many writers taking the ideas I introduced and utilizing them. Yet, jealous "activists" want to stop my efforts of bringing new approaches to dharma into the mainstream. They need to understand my response below and Arun's comment above. If you failed, it does not follow that so will I.

[this next thread seems to have gotten intertwined into the previous thread on Purva Paksha, and was initiated in December 2011..]

"I have received my copy of “Being Different” and have
completed reading the first chapter. My first impression of the book from
yesterday’s reading:

Apart
from the fact that it is astute in its intellectual formulations, it is
soulfully written as well.

I think
this book is a must read for all Indophiles (lovers of India).

I specifically liked Rajiv ji’s formulations on “Difference
Anxiety” both from above and below. The preliminary discussions in this chapter
on assimilation and digestion are extremely important because even for many of
us Indians, who have had an English medium education, it was much later in life
that we learned that Indian traditions have impacted the west in a major way in
the last five hundred years: And we learn this only after we take a specialized
study of humanities. This information is not readily available—not only that
very few books are available on this topic, many of you will be surprised to
know that Raymond Schwab’s important book “Oriental Renaissance” (as referenced
in “Breaking India”) is out of print. “The Oriental Enlightenment” by J.J.
Clarke is available, if you want to further learn about India’s
impact on Europe during the times of Enlightenment.

...

Regarding “Purva Paksha,” I want to add that there is
another book available which will complement “Being Different” very well. It is
Sri Aurobindo’s “Renaissance in India
with a Defence of Indian Culture.” An English journalist by the name of William
Archer wrote a scathing book that represented the colonial view on Indian
culture and its traditions. Sri Aurobindo in that book does a “purva paksha,” “khandana,”
and goes on to discuss the Indian tradition from the perspective or “siddhanta”
of his Integral philosophy. A pdf copy of the book is available on the
following website:

If you want to purchase a copy of the book, you can do so
from their online shop"

Wadhwa adds:

"..plea to add "Renaissance in India with a Defence of
Indian Culture", a book doing purva-paksha, by Sri Aurobindo which will
complement 'Being Different' is a good suggestion. Adding to this, I
would also suggest the works of Maharishi Dayananda(1824-83) especially
Satyartha Prakash. His magnum opus containing extensive use of purva
paksha style debates is basically written for spreading the message of
truth without evincing personal hatred. Sri Aurobindo acknowledged his
legacy and in a chapter on Dayananda - The Man and His Work which is
part of his publication 'Bankim-Tilak-Dayananda' (pub.by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry 1st Ed.1940,6th Ed.2006) he writes "In
Dayananda's life we see always the puissant jet of his spiritual
practicality. A spontaneous power and decisiveness is stamped
everywhere on his work."(page 49). At page 51 Sri Aurobindo
says "Truth seems a simple thing and is yet most difficult. Truth was
the master word of the Vedic teaching, truth in the soul, truth in
vision, truth in the intention, truth in the act. Practical truth, arjava,
an inner candour and a strong sincerity, clearness and open honour in
the word and deed, was the temperament of the old Aryan morals. It is
the secret of pure unspoilt energy, the sign that a man has not
travelled far from Nature. It is the bar dexter of the son of Heaven,
Divasputra. This was the stamp that Dayananda left behind him and it should be the mark and effigy of himself by which the parentage of his work can be recognised." .."

Arjunshakti responds:
Swami Dayananda maybe have done his critiques on islam and Christianity but he also reinvented through his interpretation the Vedas as being monotheist and anti idolatry ect.He used the very same Abrahamic templates he was attacking to become the Vedic world view which only opens the doors to the likes of Dr Zakir naiks on a common platform of 'monotheism' ..The Arya Samajis even have their equivalent to the 10 commandments.. Often I see present day Arya Samajis attacking other Hindus as 'puranics' and believes in multiple gods giving more ammunition to the anti hindus to attack Hinduism with..

Rajiv's response:
Agreed. Both he and Ram Mohan Roy while doing their purva paksha of the west got "modified" themselves in the process.

Rakesh asks:
"Even Ramakrishna math got modified ? swami vivekananda while he remined steadfastly hindu had to make hinduism palatable to the west and had to make Christ an avatara as well.

Rajiv response:
While agreeing with the above, I want to differentiate between
Jesus and Christianity.

Indians need to understand that Christianity was not started by Jesus or proposed by him, but invented by Roman conquerors as a system of theocracy and mind control. The 4th century construction of the New Testament in Nicea (in modern day Turkey) is well accepted by Christian theologians and has never been doubted by mainstream churches.

One can take Jesus' own words (such as Sermon on the Mount) and find great similarities with Vedanta. But Jesus was not history-centric - which is the problem with christianity, that if removed from it would de-fang it. In fact, the church would dissolve, and there would be a reverse digestion, i.e. Jesus would get digested into dharma while Christianity would disappear.

Despite this position which I have worked out in detail, I dont advocate people promoting "Jesus lived in India" type of scenarios, because the ground is not ready to make such a massive onslaught on the edifice of the christian fortress.
Such thinking today amounts to sameness, and is leading to Hinduism getting digested into christianity, not the other way around.

....

The purpose of BD is to define what non-compromising positions of dharma must sustain in this encounter between cosmologies. In each of the differences identified, the two sides' positions are shown to be mutually incompatible, and
the side that compromises gets digested into the other. Once you are secure in this knowledge and experienced in its deployment then by all means you should engage in interfaith dialogues and propose: "lets be the same, but on our terms". But first step is to get a solid grip of what "our terms" amounts to."

Mukul asks:
"Can you show the exact quote? I think Swamiji's [Vivekananda]position on Christ was not of an Avatar. He even challenged the historicity of Christ at one place"

Nimesh comments:
...[Vivekananda] never challenged the history of jesus.
he was just explaining the difference between a religion that is founded by one person [i.e. history-centric] vs the one that has evolved. [also,] it was one of the greatest experiment of his guru - ...

Neeraj adds:
We are starting here with an assumption that there WAS a 'Jesus Christ', which has not been proven by the most sincere of Christian historians (as per Sita Ram Goel's 'Jesus Christ: An artifice for aggression'). Do we have to accept Jesus to be a historical figure?...

Rajiv's response:
Whether jesus existed in history is irrelevant to my point (as is whether Shiva was a historical person). There are many states of consciousness in dharma and these may or may not be historical - they can also be ahistorical.
My criticism in BD is (for strategic reasons) ONLY limited to history-centrism - this criticism has implications against the church which i want to separate from Jesus.Desh comments:
"....The fight between Dharma and Abrahamic dispensations is a classic
fight between Inclusivity and Exclusivity. All that Exclusivist desires
is to sit on the same pedestal as the Inclusivist. That is MORE than
enough for him. Enough to about the agenda of "I am X, and SO you are Y,
and that is why I hate you". The Inclusivist helps him by saying "I
don't know who I am, but we are all one".

This is Benign Inclusivism. Benign Inclusivism or
Exclusivism may not be the only options. Dharmic Inclusivism is an alert
construct where Exclusivism has to be fought with correctness of
knowing.

That is why I am completely convinced that your
books will serve a much larger purpose than you may have intended. They
are as revolutionary historically as Vivekananda's speech in 1893. Such
contemporary and mainstream effort with solid knowledge of Dharma has
not happened in a century now..."

Surya comments:
"Read the following speech by Vivekananda on Jesus. A very respectful speech. Vivekananda sees Vedantic thought in what Jesus says. ... In the speech, the closest he came to elevating Jesus to God is when he says:

If
I, as an Oriental, have to worship Jesus of Nazareth, there is only one
way left to me, that is, to worship him as God and nothing else. Have
we no right to worship him in that way, do you mean to say? If we bring
him down to our own level and simply pay him a little respect as a great
man, why should we worship at all? Our scriptures say, "These great
children of Light, who manifest the Light themselves, who are Light
themselves, they, being worshipped, become, as it were, one with us and
we become one with them."

....

Need To read this carefully to avoid being digested.First, there is the supposition "IF" in the beginning of the sentence.

Second,
he is saying that worshipping great men of light brings us close to
them and their teachings. That is same as "Guru sakshat parabrahma".
This is a core Hindu value - conferring very high respect to a teacher.

If
we agree with this, then we accept Jesus as a great teacher of Vedantic
thought and confer the respect we give to other religious teachers but
nothing more special. Jesus is not called exclusively by Vivekananda as
an Avatar or Son of God... "

Srinivasan comments:
"That is exactly what the Swami Abhedananda who took over from Swami Vivekananda did when he was in America. His book"Why Hindu accepts Christ and rejects Churchianity" is a fine book which does the job of digesting Jesus into Dharma and rejecting the claim of Church andis printed by Ramakrishna Mutt.Swami Vivekananda rejected the idea of Sinner.His speech in Chicago echoes the thought well. "...the Hindu refuses to call you a sinner ...."

Chandramauli comments:
"If one goes by history, this stratagem of separating Jesus from
Christianity has always ended up being albatross round the neck of Hindus. Example:

"He (Raja RamMohan Roy) had demolished the most important Christian dogmas. But all along, he had kept Jesus on a high pedestal. Perhaps he was convinced that Jesus was a great moral teacher. Perhaps he was using Jesus only to beat the missionaries with their own stick. In any case, the Brahmo Samaj he founded had to pay a high price for his praise of Jesus. Keshub Chunder Sen who took over the Brahmo Samaj at a later stage, became infatuated with Jesus, so much so that he got alienated more or less completely from the Hindu society at large. Keshub's disciples tried to get Jesus endorsed by Sri Ramakrishna who knew nothing about the mischievous myth. And that, in due course, led to Ramakrishna Mission's antics of denying its Hindu ancestry."http://voiceofdharma.org/books/hhce/Ch8.htm

Rajiv's response:
I have had any number of arguments and debates with the RKM folks over this stand of sameness by them, including in public forums. In my uturn theory, i also include many other similar uturners - SRF, Brahma Kumaris, and so forth. A
couple of years ago I had a big online fight with one Swami Bodhananda who has an ashram in Michigan supported by many NRIs, and the fight was specifically on his sameness nonsensical positions which he persisted in defending by avoiding the issues I raised. The discussion turned toxic once he tried to disqualify me on grounds that he had "adhikar" and I did not.

So the whole uturn research is to understand this syndrome - both the role of the gurus/sampradaya side and from the side of the westerners who join such movements.

The central question i started to focus on was: what would be non-digestible into Judeo-Christianity and yet inseparable from dharma? If these items of difference are clearly understood and planted firmly in every dharmic leader's public posture, then uturns would be prevented.

My answer: attack history centrism. A focused target is easier than a wider one, such as a whole religion carte blanche. Many people who see themselves as christians join in attacks against history-centrism. THERE IS A WHOLE ANTI-CHURCH MOVEMENT WITHIN CHRISTIANITY ITSELF.

A smart strategy knows the limitations in one's positions and does not try to fight a bigger battle than one can win. So all i hope to achieve through BD from westerners is to win over those who accept the problems caused by history centrism. Going beyond that is self defeating because you will get no supporters - not even the yoga/meditation types of westerners. (You should go out and try your various ideas as experiments to get real world empirical data first.) "

Integral unity means ultimately ONLY the whole exists; the parts that
make up the whole have but a RELATIVE existence. The whole is
independent and indivisible.

Creation is not separate from God. Since the divine manifests itself
as the cosmos, the entire cosmos is intelligent and ultimately one.
God is not merely the creator (the external force) of the world; God IS
the world....Integral unity can be discovered and experienced through spiritual practices.

Dharmic notion of integral unity is summarized in chapter seven of
Bhagavad Gita. Long before the Gita, Vedas described only one Ultimate
Reality, with many layers and levels. There is no shift in the
Scriptures from polytheism to
monotheism as some Western scholars claim.

There is one unique event, the creation, that is separate from its creator and before which there was nothing.

Physical and non-physical entities ultimately have their own independent existence, linked only externally by divine fiat.

There are inherently separate entities: God and Creation, God and Human, body and mind, spirit and matter etc., ."

Does the knowledge and concept of integral unity guide our views and policy for rural development ?

.... Dr.
Kamal's question is quite pertinent, particularly considering that his
institute in involved in Holistic research for rural development..."

Karthik responds:

"I feel this knowldge was addressed when Gandhiji called for "production
by the masses instead of mass production" . EF SChaumacher, an Econimist
in 60s revived this with his "Small is Beautiful: Economics as if
People Mattered" and his reference to Buddhist Economics. A reasonable
write up on this is in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_economics.THis could be well applicable to Hindu Economics as well..."

Surya responds:

"Integral Unity should not be confused with a centralized,
monolithic system. Forcing such a top-down hierarchy is indeed
antithetical to Dharmic traditions. Such a forced unity is synthetical
in nature. Thus, mass production is a synthetically forced unity.

Schumacher
talks about how high economic efficiency can be wasteful in certain
natural resources even though it is the least cost or most economical
approach. Mass production seeks to replace human capital with other
less expensive resources. In the end, it ignores the human element and
the human need for a respectable livelihood: ...

The notion of cottage
industry advocated by Gandhiji was founded on the principle of "small is
beautiful - economic way where people matter".

...

The
dilemma that arises is: Economics where people matter is unstable - it
is an ideal that is a peak of the mountain; one can easily slip off
this peak when exploited. Economics where profits matter is stable - it
is at the bottom of the valley of ideals but it is very stable;
difficult to exploit you here.

I will leave with a question:

Will
the growth of Dharmic traditions bring greater stability at the top?
Or should we give up and accept as fact that the bottom of the valley
is the only stable economic state?"

Ram comments:
"One of the overlooked advantages of the decentralized dharmic spiritual
system is extreme resistance to outside attempts to destroy it, such as
moves by conquerors to wipe out the system.

The strength of the
centralized authoritarianism like Christianity or Islam is its clear
lines of authority, organization internally, its leadership class of
highly trained priests, its education system and its ability to act like
a unit against threats. That is also its weakness, because the
centralized system works well only when it is protected by the state. If
the state is conquered by an outside group or a new political entity,
the centralized authoritarian group loses its protection and can easily
be shattered.

....Look at how the Russian communists crushed the Eastern Orthodox
church after the Russian Revolution as an example. ....
So in a single generation the Eastern Orthodox was wiped out, and no new
generations grew up within that system....In contrast the dharmic systems like Hinduism are apparently
designed for the long term, to be able to resist immense pressure from
the outside. Hinduism does not depend on the patronage or protection of
the state and can exist strongly even if the state is hostile. ... They can choose
their own spiritual path, their own ish devta, without permission or
approval from any organized group.

When the Muslims invaded India they made enormous attempts to wipe
out Hinduism and convert all to Islam, by force if necessary. ...This went on in various forms for hundreds of years, but yet at the
end of the Moghul era in India less than 10 percent of the Indians had
been converted to Islam. In most other countries they had conquered, the
Muslims quickly achieved conversion rates of over 75%, and in some
places like Iran and Iraq they hit close to 100%. In India the only way
to wipe out Hinduism was to wipe out the Hindus physically, which was
foolish.

.....
I understand that Buddhists has also proved very resistant to
destruction or conversion, because of the same decentralized system that
has the individual free to pursue his connection with the divine
without intermediaries, institutions or permission from authoritarian
structures.

We believe that the Hindu rishis and swamis who wandered the world
thousands of years ago made some conclusions that we are still
benefitting from today. Religions rise and fall over time, depending on
the nature of their structure and change in circumstances. ... A system that is fixed
and attached to the norms of a particular culture in historical time
will shatter when that culture changes and moves on.

So those rishis and swamis developed a system that would be flexible
and adaptable to change, that would not be dependent on centralized
authoritarian structures, that could be practiced without dependence on
external instututions or priests, that could be practiced secretly or
at home, that offered freedom of choice as opposed to a fixed menu, that
allowed members to function at their own level of development, that was
based on firm and defensible philosophical principles, that allowed and
welcomed new methods of worship and religious systems, that was
egalitarian and non sexist, non racist, respectful towards other
systems, respectful to the environment and all living beings....That is the heritage of Hindus, one which we neglect at our peril."

Arjunshakti responds:
"Its
true that Hinduism is resilient but lets not forget that Hindus in the
past did also stand their ground militarily especially during Islamic
periods.Theres many myths that have been created to promote that hindus
were just passive were slaves for a thousand years but still made it
through.This is the reason why sometimes even good intentioned Hindus
think that its ok we dont have to stand our ground because we survived
in the past so we will continue to survive but thats not the truth or
the reality.."

struth91 adds:
"...The core takeaway of Chapter 3 is in the contrasting attitudes towards
Science and Reason in the respective societies. Hebraism and Hellenism
coming together to create the artificial entity known as 'Western
Civilization' was always a force-fit.

It is ironical that
Matthew Arnold used 'Hebraism' as his term for Christian Biblical
heritage and moralistic worldview that contrasted with Science - when
the original Hebraic religion (Judaism) was and is perhaps less
dogma-driven than is Christianity, resulting in a more positive attitude
towards Science.

See this article for a Jewish viewpoint on why Judaism 'embraces Science' far more so than does Christianity:.

Each
one of the three points that the Rabbi makes for Judaism, holds true to
a much larger extent for Hinduism (& Dharmic religions in general)..."

For clarity, I will identify my position: Followers
of Dharmic traditions find comfort in a self-organizing socio-economic
system versus followers of Abrahamic faiths who will find comfort in a
highly organized, centrally commanded socio-economic system. Advantage
for followers of Dharmic traditions is that they are comfortable will
both forms - they can choose either forms and be comfortable as we see
in India. Followers of Abrahamic faiths are uncomfortable with
self-organized systems.

Underlying
premise is that the faith system of a follower defines his/her zone of
comfort and hence is a major driver of choices he/she makes for the
system.

Reasoning with BD concepts is as follows:

1) Chaos vs. Order

______________

Comfort
with chaos implies that Dharmic followers are open to a socio-economic
system which is self-organizing in nature and evolves to meet the
specific needs of the society.

...

For
example, Mass production by cotton mills is highly structured,
centralized, and driven centrally by profit motive (economic efficiency)
as opposed to handloom industry that is organized around societal needs
(economically suboptimal but caters to the human needs of large number
of artisans)."

Karthik responds:
"... Just by coincidence... they remind me somewhat of these five principles:

The importance of real freedoms in the assessment of a person's advantage

Individual differences in the ability to transform resources into valuable activities

The multi-variate nature of activities giving rise to happiness

A balance of materialistic and nonmaterialistic factors in evaluating human welfare

Concern for the distribution of opportunities within society

Guess
what those five principles are? They're known collectively as the basis
of
what is called "Capabilities Approach". Amartya Sen is credited with
having "developed" these ideas (all by his own sweet self!) in the
1980s. The "Capabilities Approach" as applied to other aspects of
society is a recurrent theme in the writings of another vaunted
professor of "Ethics", Martha Nussbaum.

Of course, once the Western Grand Narrative representation of India has
become the norm in cultural studies, our civilization's intellectual
wealth is conveniently available for plunder, digestion, and
re-packaging as "original thought" by the Amartya Sen/Martha Nussbaum
types!

"Poverty" is still bandied about
as a characteristically Indian vice... but a "capabilities approach",
outlined on exactly the same dharmic principles of self-organizing
social and economic development described by Surya below, has suddenly
become the unique, original intellectual property of Sen and Nussbaum!!
All hail the Age of Reason!

These fellows are indeed the Clive and Mir Jaffar of today."

Rajiv comments:
"This is very good analysis of Amartya Sen's and his girlfriend's (i.e.
Nussbaum's) trajectory that fits the UTurn Theory. With one hand
appropriate (i.e. stage 3 of uturn) and with the other hand denigrate
the source (i.e. stage 4 of uturn). These stages as per uturn theory do
not have to happen in one set sequence, nor do thay all happen in the
same individual, and could take multiple generations of scholars to
become evident. There is also stage 5 in which this "new and Western"
thought is re-exported back to Indian intellectuals who eagerly lap it
up"

(1)
Synthetic unity is, at best, a convenience; it misses out on the deeper
bonds that hold people together across the boundaries of hierarchies
and diversified of various kinds. Synthetic systems can be functional
and pragmatic -serve their design purpose well. For them to be integral
systems, how the individual elements function versus the whole is
looked at.(2) A tighter form of
synthetic unity can take on an organic quality where the overarching
interests of the whole override separate interests of the parts. The
whole takes priority and parts are subservient to it.(3)
Many organic systems fall short of integral unity in the Dharmic sense.
This is because their building blocks are still separate and exert
powers separately. It is rare for a synthetic collection to become so
integrated that the parts permanently relinquish their own
self-interest.(4) It could be a
tentative coalition for a purpose - individual interests can surface at
any time. In integral systems, there is no question of temporary
coalitions. There is only one purpose. .. There is a simple test offered in BD to see if a system qualifies the definition of an integral system:If the individual elements of the system retain their identity and interests separately then the system is synthetic. ..It
is easy to identify some synthetic systems. For example, the capital
marketplace is synthetic in the sense that its participants try to
optimize their own separate interests, the market's purpose being to
enable each participant to transact for its own benefit.Cooperative
farming is a synthetic system. Here the coalition is temporary and the
individual elements are participating out of self interest. United
Nations is another example of this kind."

Rajesh shares:
"Actually this issue of Top-Down Organization vs Self-Organization is important for the future trajectory of Indian Retail Industry.

In
the Western World one sees a few big players who own most of the retail
outlets. They keep on buying the smaller players in the market further
consolidating their market share and joint-monopoly!

In India one sees a huge number of sellers and vendors, who may be small and have just a few shops in a single town.

Now
why is it important to preserve Mom&Pop Stores, family owned
businesses, etc. vs Big Retail. After all Big Retail does offer us
consumers more competitive prices, i.e. until their (monopoly project is
complete), they do help in the creation of more efficient industry for
Logistics, Refrigeration, Storage, Assembly, etc.

The biggest
advantage in keeping it small is that in times of repression,
self-organized retail sector has the ability to absorb a lot more
people, who can look independently for opportunities, who can be
self-employed. The Self-Organized Retail Sector offers a buffer for such
times, especially as all other areas including agriculture in order to
become more efficient have to cut down on dependent people. So
Self-Organized Retail Sector remains the only savior in such times. For a
huge country like ours where big industry nor government can provide
jobs for everybody, this is a huge plus point.

How does the West
react during times of recession? Well they roll out huge stimulus
packages. They give money to various industries like construction
industry, and other industries, for doing new projects in the hope that
this heightened economic activity would give more people jobs.
Invariably one gets only jobless growth. The industry takes the money
but does not hire new people because they can do without! And the
unemployed have nowhere to look for jobs. And the government has nowhere
to fund jobs directly except the already bloated public services. So
these people remain unemployed. In the West there is no Industry, which
can act as a Recession Buffer.

In a global economy, where the
pressure is so much to keep production costs low, it is possible that in
agriculture and manufacturing there would be shift towards more
efficiency and possibly more organization. That is all the more reason
that inefficiency costs can be tolerated when they are more closer to
user, i.e. in the retail sector.

Summarizing, we should keep the
Retail Sector as self-organized and try to avoid Big Retail to force its
way in! It will save us from the Recession and Jobless Growth problems
of the West!"

Karthik adds:
"Developing,
and effectively marketing, a BD-based "App" for economic development is
a particularly pressing need, because poverty (like the "plight of
women") is one of those emotive touchstones used over and over again by
postcolonial theorists employing Western categories to depict India as a
"uniquely divided and oppressive place" (Ronald Inden, quoted in BD)

When
the arch-pedagogues of the Western Grand Narrative, and their acolytes
on the Indian Left, use "poverty" to bash India (and by extension, all
that is Indian)... we have the deck stacked against us from the start.
That
is because "poverty" is emotionally loaded, and any discussion of the
subject provides an excellent vehicle for gratuitous civilizational
invective.

Everybody knows "poverty" is bad, right? So when we
get defensive about drain-inspector portrayals of poverty in India (such
as "Slumdog Millionaire") it becomes easy for the enemy to portray us
as vain jackasses... indeed, to assume a moral high ground and bash us
with righteous indignation at our "inhumane indifference to the
suffering of less privileged Indians". We are accused, in our embrace of
"bourgeoisie nationalism", of willfully turning a blind eye to the
harsh realities with which millions of our fellow countrymen contend
every day.

Here is a case study in the use of "poverty". A
potentially honest and non-judgmental journalistic treatise on an Indian
slum has been immediately co-opted by the Usual Suspects to push their
venal and motivated deconstruction of
India.

This book in particular deals with the Annawadi
slum near Mumbai airport. Having not read the book myself, I cannot
comment on whether it is simply a "drain-inspector's report" or actually
offers a fresh perspective. It is quite possible, given Boo's
reputation as a dispassionate and thorough journalist, that the book is
simply a careful, non-judgmental and even sympathetic record of her
interactions with Annawadi's inhabitants over a period of some years.
She has not spared economic inequality in the West, and was awarded the
Pullitzer Prize in 2000 for her reporting on the plight of welfare
recipients and group-home inhabitants in Washington DC.

Boo
herself is a journalist, not a "theorist". She appears to have reported
on her experiences in Annawadi (thankfully) without resorting to
"analysis" or "interpretation".

However, her book has already
become a vehicle for celebration, and hijack, by the theory-wallahs we
know so well. They have seized upon it as another chance to do India
down, and reinforce their pet themes.....

"A
beautiful account, told through real-life stories, of the sorrows and
joys, the anxieties and stamina, in the lives of the precarious and
powerless in urban India whom a booming country has failed ...."... Amartya Sen

Not to be outdone:
"....."
Ramachandra Guha

"Her
book, situated in a slum on the edge of Mumbaiâ€™s
international airport, is one of the most powerful indictments of
economic inequality I've ever read. If Bollywood ever decides to do
its own version of The Wire, this would be it.â€... Barbara Ehrenreich

[...In her view, Bollywood should take
its cue from the mirror that American journalist Katherine Boo is
holding up before India, and become inspired to incorporate the Western
Grand narrative of Indian poverty into its own pop-cultural
representations of itself!...]

.....One effect of this assault is
to pre-emptively delegitimize alternative frameworks of conceiving of
poverty, of approaching and resolving the social and economic problems
associated with poverty. That is exactly what the Indian left wants: a
monopoly over the characterization of Indian poverty,
restricted to dogmatically Marxist frameworks that will never, ever
concede an inch of space for dharmic solutions.

Just one of many reasons why I am so grateful that Rajiv has begun this work.."

struth91 posts:
"Regarding a BD-based "App" for economic development-

Economics
is best addressed as a component of Governance (Raj Dharma). A useful
way of understanding Dharma, the ethics and science of decision making,
is to categorize it as operating at 4 levels : Individual &
Community Dharma, Corporate Dharma (covering all forms of organizations
and leadership issues), Raj Dharma (including governance, politics,
economics and jurisprudence) & Inter-State Dharma.

There's
already a fair amount of work on classical Indian thought around
economics ..

As is well
known, Kautilya's Arthashastra is probably the earliest ever treatise in
the world on economics. There was also a defined Sreni Dharma for
regulating the srenis / guilds of ancient India, a precursor to
modern-day Corporate Law.

Coming to
"Apps" in this area- would be better to aim to popularize concepts,
processes and frameworks of analysis that are derived from classical
Indian thought. But there is some danger in full-fledged economic
positions unless these are sophisticated and nuanced enough to stand up
against current models. Simplistic 'black and white' positions, such as
an anti-multinational message (the RSS propagated this in the nineties)
can be easily panned as being 'obscurantist'...."

Senthil introduces a new angle to the discussion.Rajiv notes:"Good
points made. See my challenge in the new thread I am starting, titled
"Is the Vedic lifestyle viable today?". This thread was summarized here.

"One of the important message in BD is "Reversing the Gaze"..
its a call to bring ourselves out of the western models and see them
from our dharmic perspective..

So far, we
were discussing about dharma from a philosophical angle.. i call it as
"Software"part.. We also need to consider another part of our dharma,
which is the hardware part.. ie, what are the physical environment
needed for our dharma to flourish? I wish, this should also be
discussed.. Let me share few things, which i had thought over..

1.
The present system of politics, the administration, the geographical
organisation, are all based on western systems. What i find is that, we
are trying to fit our dharma, in to these western systems, which i feel
is
incompatible.

To quote one example, the current westernised
urban system, heavily pollutes rivers, seas, and ground water system.
So many lakes, has been destroyed to expand big metros like chennai,
mumbai etc. Such acts cannot be part of dharma. Rivers are divine for
us, so as other water sources.

Another example i could cite is
that every hindu has to perform pitru dharpan to our ancestors, and for
that we need water sources. In our traditional administration system, a
nagara or a grama is planned, and built in such a way, that is
conducible for hindu way of life style. In all ancient nagaras, there
would be a shiva/vishnu temple at the center, with a big lake. In All
traditional gramas, there would be a grama devata at the centre of the
village, with a lake/pond or a small water body besides it. These
water bodies, enable hindus to do their religious
rituals. So our dharma flourished, because, our nagara and grama were
built according to agamas. Today, the metros, and towns are built
based on western model, for western type of economic system, and not
based on dharmic way of life or dharmic way of economy. That's the
reason we are finding it more and more difficult to adhere to our dharma
in Metros. Infact, its virtually impossible for dharma to exist there.

2.
We never had anonymous/atomised populations before britishers. Our
society had a different kind of representation system, based on
family/jathi/village, which is still existing in the other part of
india. Every jathi had jathi panchayat headed by jathi elders, which
resolves internal family and jathi disputes. At a village level, there
would be village panchayat, resolves issues related to village
administration or inter-jathi disputes. Whether jathis are outdated
or not, is a
different question. ...

3.
Hinduism is often described as a way of life. However, a way of life is
based on societal setup, and the physical setup (village/nagara
planning).
Societal setup: the jathis, its gothra, kula devata,
all have their own way of worship, rituals, marriage etc. which forms
the cultural part.
Physical Setup: the facilitation by design of
living area (village/nagara), in such a way, that the life style (&
hence the
dharma) of these jathis are made possible and feasible.

There is one more angle - the economic angle - which i will not include for now.

4.
Based on Rajiv's excellent point of "Sanskrit Non-Translatables", i
would like to convey, that the words, Nagara, Grama, Dhesa cannot be
equated to city, village or nation of the western vocabulary. In
Europe, the nation is always based on race and language. Whereas in our
civilization, a dhesam is based on dharma. We had 56 ancient dhesams,
and all of them, had the same social structure - The brahmanas,
kshatriyas, vyshyas, and shudras. The racial formation is virtually
impossible in such setup.

In western terms, a village is a place
with sparse population. As per webster's dictionary till 1830s, a
village is termed as place where barbarians live. We cannot apply this
term to denote our gramas. Our gramas are well planned, and well
designed as
per agama. (Note: we verified this aspect, by visiting many of the
gramas in chera dhesam in tamilnadu.. )

5. The social
composition of a typical village is same across south india ( for north
india, i have no data as of now). The farming community would be
predominant, and some dozen other jathis that exists as part of them.
The beauty is that, all these jathis constitute a single entity. ie,
due to some reason (famine/war), if the farming community migrates, they
do no go alone. But migrate as a whole, with all the associated
jathis.." Raghu responds to Senthil:
"We
must guard against a romantic reconstruction of our past. ... studied
the Vaastu Shastras for ten years... We have seen both the exalted and
the extractive sides of the so called pundits. While the original texts
are open and rational, later day practitioners and present day Vaastu
pundits have distorted the design principles beyond recognition into
a dogmatic set of formulae backed by blind belief.

Some of the governance mechanisms described by Dharampal and Claude
Alvarez were misrepresented by the leaders of the time to accumulate
land and wealth on the one hand, and allow the traditional duties to
languish.

We have a difficult task on our hands, firstly of rediscovering a
balanced sense of pride, secondly, of looking critically and rationally
at both the past and the present. Dharampal was fond of saying that we
can't become a great nation by
running behind the tails of the west, nor by blind resurrection of the tradition."

Rajiv's response: This is a good comment and belongs to the new thread I started with message no. 2208. (summarized in this post - last week).

Arun has the last word in this discussion: "The decentralized knowledge systems such as we call Hinduism today survived.The
centralized ones, such as were taught in Nalanda, Taxila (of course, it
included the traditions that survive today) perished. It is not as
though we did not have centralized knowledge systems, IMO."

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